Since I was a boy, I like to watch movies because I love to be in the fantasy world. It’s normal for a kid fantasy to fly like superman, doing ninja move like teenage mutant ninja turtle or become big and strong to fight monsters like ultraman. That’s one of the way for me to be in the fantasy world by watching movies.
My first experience being in the cinema when I was 13 yrs old and after I finished my high school, I’ll go to watch a movie every week or 3 times a month if there is any exciting movie that I want to watch. But I only watching every Wednesday because its cheap around 5ringgit or AUD2 or I just use my student card for a 6ringgit movie anytime before 5pm.
But when I was living in Japan, the ticket is quite expensive around 1200yen (AUD12)…for me its still expensive, around 30ringgit for a movie ticket. So I just waiting the movie come out at bittorrent so that I can download it. But if the movie have a great cinematography or a good CGI (computer generated imagery), I willing to spend that money to watch on a wide big screen.
What I love about watching movie is because I like to know how other people thinks about other things. What r the main purpose that movie created for? Why they show that kind of angle? What r they trying to say? What are their agenda? It’s a powerful medium to reach audiences all around the world and there’s somehow propaganda in it. I don’t just see a movie but I watch the movie. And one more thing that it’s a kind of escapism for me because its still a fantasy in a movie. Its hard to see a happy ending story on the news tv or paper so I watch movie to ease my mind from all the crap in the real world.
For some movie, there’s an art in it. I like to watch the art of the camera works. How they use the color to play with the mood. How the camera position itself with a certain meaning and why they take certain scene as a metaphor. Last 2 years I was involved in a movie making in my country……..as an extra off course. I stayed at the set until 4am and it’s a great experience for me. That movie won a numerous awards early this year and I was proud of it.
On self critism, I know I have to spend a lot of money to watch movies rather than spending it to buy books or other better things. I’m wasting much of my time watching movie rather than finishing my asmt or study for exam…oopppsss…I like to watch movies….in a way, I learned something out of it.
Before I present about theoretical perspectives, I would like to point out some of the controversial movie that had been made nowadays.
When Passion of The Christ were shown in 2004, there were a protest by the Jewish because of the anti-Semitic from Mel Gibson. Same goes with The Schindler’s List in 1993.
The Da Vinci Code also have a contradiction with the Christianity believe and the film 300 that portrayed the Persian as inhuman monsters that provoked Iranian.
The film Zoolander about a male supermodel starred by Ben Stiller that been brainwashed to kill the Prime Minister of Malaysia. For me, this film shows that how stupid and lack of knowledge the American was about the culture and custom of other countries. I was laughing when I saw they portrayed the PM a man wearing like a Vietnam traditional cloth and can’t speak properly the only dialogue he have, a simple Malays phrase “Terima Kasih”.
Another film that is controversial is Black Hawk Down. The whole film shows that only the Americans are involve during the conflict in Mogadishu. The truth is they all are trapped there and The Malaysian and Pakistani army come to rescue all the 70 Americans rangers. This misinformation will give a huge misunderstanding to all the audience. But for me, it’s a typical American Hollywood films where all they know is to create the ‘Americanisation’. They are the best and they don’t care about others.
On theoretical perspectives, Frankfurt school probably said that this is an industry that controlled by the ruling class to cultivate the minds of the lower class for false consciousness. They show to the people what to think, what to buy, what to wear and what you are is what u own. As what Mathew Arnold always said - all that was superstitious, crass, crude and vulgar. And for passive audiences its more dangerous because of the bullet theory – what u see is what u think is it. When I saw the movie Reign Over Me, I saw adam sandler ride a mopad, a electric scooter and so I said “whoa…I want one of those…its cool…”.
For the traditional feminists, they’ll be outraged because of the movie portrayed a stereotype female as a sexpot, sexy, voluptuous, just to attract audience to watch the movie. Always being a weak individuals and have a lot of problems.
For postmodernists, they’ll say that there’ll be full of contradictions between high and low culture and there also have a different understandings and interpretations can be made. A postmodernist film will make the audience’s suspension of disbelief to be destroyed or at least toyed with, in order to free the audience’s appreciation of the work and the creator’s means with which to express it.
One of the example of postmodern film is the most famous and spectacular, perhaps the only cyberpunk film known outside the science fiction ghetto is The Matrix. The whole idea of the film is an assault not only on spectators’ senses, but on their common sense as well. The postmodern ambience of the film makes spectators question yet another metanarrative, this of the time they live in, and of what they perceive as reality.
And for postmodern feminists, they’ll say that its ok to show how ‘beautiful’ woman are. Its not a bad impression to show woman as a antagonist such as tomb rider, barb wire, wonder woman, etc. But for both traditional and postmodern feminists may argue that there are lack of female directors and producers and the fact that movie making is a very male-dominated workplace. Even the makeup artists nowadays are men.
Cheers....
Posted at 4/30/2007 3:41:36 pm by
joeblack2020
